Recycling? We just don’t do it
Okay after 8 weeks here I’m ready for my first critical post of life in Omaha.
The biggest shock to me has been the dramatic absence of recylcing bins in public places. The airport and the zoo are two of the biggies that stand out, places where hundreds of thousands of people pass through every year with many tons of plastic water and soda bottles. There are plenty of trash cans but not recycling bins to be seen. At the big swimming pool in the park there is a vending machine and lots of trash cans but not recycling. At my son’s school where they go through cases of inidivudal sized plastic bottles of milk everyday, no recycling. At the JCC where our daughter goes to preschool an which has a nice gym where people consume a lot of water in plastic bottles, no recycling. I had a meeting in a large office building with multiple kitchens and probably 800 people working in the building, again no recycling anywhere. One exception is In the kitchen at Sarah’s office they do have bins for recyling glass and plastic, go OCF!
Still, it is nearly 2009 and the default in the offices, schools, and many of the homes that I have been in is throw away.
So my first target has been the JCC. I have been in contact with the facilities manager there and he is researching what it would take to get the recycling bins there. He even mentioned that there might be state grants available for it. I am planning on following up with him next week.
The next target for me will be the Omaha Zoo. During my last visit there I saw more than 30 trash cans and not a single recycling bin of any kind. After that I am going to try and identify the right person to talk with in the school system. It is a huge missed opportunity in the public schools here.
I even told Sarah the other night that maybe we should buy a recycling truck and start driving around. This is a biggie for me in terms of thinking about the differences between where we were living and where I live now.
SE Virginia has a similar lack of recycling bins. For example, you’d think a university would have a paper-recycling program.
You’d be wrong. Our department administrator collects the recycling from everyone and drives it to the recycling place herself!
And, like you, it drives me crazy!
Am mostly appalled that they are giving the children milk in plastic bottles! Also totally unnecessary to have plastic bottles of water in the work place (and the gym) when you can have filtered, cooled mains water which is more cost effective and creates no waste. (Suggest to the gym they sell branded, refillable sports bottles – hurray, free advertising, hygienic, no waste). In summary, it’s an even bigger battle (and yet more worthwhile) to avoid the waste in the first place.
In the international terminal of SFO, in the area where you wait for arrivals, there are no recycling bins. Instead, the trash cans have signs that state all material is recycled off-site.
Dan – getting caught up on the blog here. When my friend Kristy moved to Alabama 10 years ago – she and her husband had to pack up their recycling weekly and drive it to the recycling center. There was no pick up. This is something she was really frustrated with in her state as well. We take it for granted here. Completely.